Community-Accountable Design

Journal

Bread & Roses Community Survey 2026

Written bY

Una Lee

Photo of 2 red-and-white striped sock puppets with bulging eyes. One puppet looks out at the audience, while the other is mid-sentence with its mouth wide open and arms flailing
Jump to THE SURVEY

OUR STORY

Bread & Roses is a grocery truck-turned-time machine from Lamoille County in the year 2175. Did you know that in the future, everyone has more than enough to eat and feels a deep sense of belonging and care from our community?

In late 2024, we conceived of Bread & Roses as a mutual aid grocery truck that would distribute essential goods for the times we’re living in: food, seeds, zines, and more. We envisioned it as a third space for building a community based in mutual survival and solidarity.

While we loved that original vision, our shape has shifted into a cultural organizing space — one that incorporates speculative fiction, puppet theatre, popular education, and food. It’s a shape we feel great about and want to continue evolving.

Events

  • 1 Grocery Swap (August 2025)
  • 3 Sanctuaries (November 2025, January and March 2026)
  • 3 Studio Nights (January, February and April 2026)
  • 3 May Day Puppet Builds with Migrant Justice and Puppet Kabob (April 2026)

Accomplishments & Updates:

  • We’ve published 2 zines, Practicing Active Hope and Building Muscle Memory (get in touch if you need a copy!)
  • Una was awarded a Creative Community Fellows New England fellowship from National Arts Strategies, to help advance Bread & Roses
  • We now have an organizational home with And Also Too, a design justice studio
  • We are now fiscally sponsored by Allied Media Projects, which allows us to apply for grant funding
  • We built a giant dairy worker puppet with Migrant Justice for the May Day picket of Hannaford
  • We have been running small testing sessions of Meshtastic, a secure, off-grid communications network, with some exciting successes

Our community of rural BIPOC, queer & trans folks, and allies has shown up in beautiful ways to make this all possible. You’ve come out to events, created puppets and puppet shows, brought food to share, donated items and cash, volunteered your time, offered space, given us feedback, and so much more.

WHERE WE’RE AT

So much has happened, and we have so much more in the works. And, we think it’s a good moment to check in with our community in a structured way. We have many things we’re curious about!

We would be so grateful for your feedback.

— Jacob & Una

Take the Survey

Bread & Roses Community Survey 2026

What is most valuable to you about Bread & Roses? Check all that apply(Required)
Scheduling: Generally, what days/times are you most able to participate in events/gatherings?(Required)
Making more things happen. Below is a list of ideas that are underway or that we're considering for Bread & Roses. Please check anything you’d like to get involved in!
Changing our name? Originally, Bread & Roses was intended to be a mutual aid grocery truck. It was named for the 1912 Bread & Roses strike in Massachusetts, during which Vermont families who were in solidarity with the striking workers temporarily housed the strikers’ children, to keep them safe and fed. The phrase “bread for all, and roses too” was written by women’s suffrage activist Helen Todd, and for workers ever since has come to represent demands not just for basic needs (bread), but also dignity (roses). We pivoted to focus on storytelling and community gatherings and thought puppets would be a great medium for that. This has left us in an awkward position — we are now consistently confused with Bread & Puppet! Do you think we should change our name?(Required)
Consent to use photos and videos of you. We have documented our events with photography and video, and thus far have only shared anonymized images or images that don’t include people’s faces. Going forward, how would you like images/videos of you to be used? (Note: we will never share identifiable photos of children.)(Required)
You may change your mind at any time. Please reach out to us if you’d like us to remove an image of you.